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On the significance of the prior of a correct decision in committees

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  • Ruth Ben-Yashar
  • Shmuel Nitzan

Abstract

The current note clarifies why, in committees, the prior probability of a correct collective choice might be of particular significance and possibly should sometimes even be the sole appropriate basis for making the collective decision. In particular, we present sufficient conditions for the superiority of a rule based solely on the prior relative to the simple majority rule, even when the decisional skills of the committee members are assumed to be homogeneous. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

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  • Ruth Ben-Yashar & Shmuel Nitzan, 2014. "On the significance of the prior of a correct decision in committees," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 76(3), pages 317-327, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:76:y:2014:i:3:p:317-327
    DOI: 10.1007/s11238-013-9362-7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Feddersen, Timothy & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1998. "Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 23-35, March.
    2. Baharad, Eyal & Nitzan, Shmuel, 2002. "Ameliorating Majority Decisiveness through Expression of Preference Intensity," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(4), pages 745-754, December.
    3. Lloyd Shapley & Bernard Grofman, 1984. "Optimizing group judgmental accuracy in the presence of interdependencies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 329-343, January.
    4. Daniel Berend & Jacob Paroush, 1998. "When is Condorcet's Jury Theorem valid?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 15(4), pages 481-488.
    5. Nitzan, Shmuel & Paroush, Jacob, 1982. "Optimal Decision Rules in Uncertain Dichotomous Choice Situations," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 23(2), pages 289-297, June.
    6. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 1996. "Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(1), pages 34-45, March.
    7. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Mor Zahavi, 2011. "The Condorcet jury theorem and extension of the franchise with rationally ignorant voters," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 435-443, September.
    8. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Igal Milchtaich, 2007. "First and second best voting rules in committees," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 29(3), pages 453-486, October.
    9. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Sarit Kraus, 2002. "Optimal collective dichotomous choice under quota constraints," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 19(4), pages 839-852.
    10. Eyal Baharad & Jacob Goldberger & Moshe Koppel & Shmuel Nitzan, 2012. "Beyond Condorcet: optimal aggregation rules using voting records," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 72(1), pages 113-130, January.
    11. Ben-Yashar, Ruth C & Nitzan, Shmuel I, 1997. "The Optimal Decision Rule for Fixed-Size Committees in Dichotomous Choice Situations: The General Result," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(1), pages 175-186, February.
    12. McLennan, Andrew, 1998. "Consequences of the Condorcet Jury Theorem for Beneficial Information Aggregation by Rational Agents," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(2), pages 413-418, June.
    13. Peyton Young, 1995. "Optimal Voting Rules," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 51-64, Winter.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Miriam Krausz & Shmuel Nitzan, 2018. "The effect of democratic decision-making on investment in reputation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 177(1), pages 155-164, October.
    2. Bryan C. McCannon, 2015. "Condorcet jury theorems," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 9, pages 140-160, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. BEN-YASHAR, Ruth & NITZAN, Shmuel, 2017. "A Note on the Possible Advantage of Size Flexibility in Committees," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-61, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    4. Liu, Shuo, 2019. "Voting with public information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 694-719.
    5. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Shmuel Nitzan, 2017. "Are two better than one? A note," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(3), pages 323-329, June.

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